


Skin & Bones

by mordecry



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: I dont know how to tag, M/M, eridium will take a huge part, first real attempt on writing something longer, its a love story, the second vault hunters, there will be sidecharacters too like
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-11-23 11:29:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11401599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mordecry/pseuds/mordecry
Summary: Handsome Jack is dead and so is Roland.They try to keep themselves and Sanctuary together as best they can but reality is cruel and more problems arise seemingly with each passing day.In between all that chaos it’s impossible to find something that lasts, something that doesn't hurt.Brick and Mordecai are no exception.





	1. Prologue

A colorless sea and he was within. Floating at the surface, only moved by tiny waves. He could not feel anything, could not breath but his body was not alarmed, in fact he had never been so calm before.

Above, darkness. There could have been traces of brown stone just as the sea could have been a faint blue, but to him there was only difference in shades of black, grey and white. A rare defect of his eyes but not entirely impossible. It was all that he knew.

There was almost no light in this place. No light and no air to breath. He wondered why the water moved without anything that could have caused it to.  
He also wondered how he could know that it moved without feeling anything, but these thoughts were dropped carelessly before they could evolve. It didn’t really matter and he wanted to stop thinking.

Reality was loud, stressful, always pulling at his body, his mind. Always exhausting, never repaying. This was comforting in comparison.

The universe owed him since the day he had left his home _. The darkness_ agreed, making him feel something that wasn’t guilt. Validation.

But it didn’t matter how much the universe, that life of his, needed to pay. He would never get it back, he would never have it all.

Get it _back._

_Something_ smiled upon him _._

What exactly had he lost anyway?

He didn’t know, stopped caring and tried to breath. He remembered he couldn’t but that was alright, sometimes even breathing was too much.

Suddenly the waves got faster, his body stayed still though. The air around him cooled down and a chill went down his spine. With the raising waters insecurities got washed up, hit his back, cold and merciless.

He felt hands touching his skin, felt them first just as a faint wind brushing over him, before they grabbed and pulled roughly at his arms, his legs, his throat.

_I’m not breathing anyway,_ he thought as soon as he felt the hand on his throat. His thoughts were clear as the day, cutting through the darkness but then he noticed that he was in fact feeling his body again.  
  
Panic settled down in his bones.

He could feel and breath but the hand at his throat grabbed tighter, making it harder for him to gasp for air.

While he was suffocating his eyes flew open and looked at the surface of the black stone above.

Light appeared, hurting him.

Too bright.


	2. Awaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Includes: Staying awake kind of sucks, sleeping does too, Lilith and her next steps, pointless vehicular slaughter, Grease-Face

Reality dug its sharp claws into his body and pulled him right back to the now. It slowed down to the end though, so that Mordecai awoke only with a throbbing headache and heavy eyelids.

Mordecais head was empty at first. For a few moments he just stared into the nothingness.  
He still felt as if he was in that place, surrounded by water and darkness. Without thinking of the hands that tried to pull him down he wished himself back.

As his mind started to wake up, he shifted in the sheets. He turned around, facing the wall this time and closed his eyes.

At first he felt it only in his head, throbbing pain hitting him over and over again. Took him not long to realize that it was the pattern of his heartbeat. Then he felt his heart clearly beating in his chest. He breathed, tried to focus on something else than his body, but it didn’t work.

The feeling made him sick and Mordecai made a face, shifted, moved around and turned on his back. His eyes opened and he stared at the ceiling.

His mind was busy running, but he couldn’t grab a clear thought. Too many things, running too fast. Focusing was hard, but shoving the thoughts aside was impossible.

Mordecai tried to concentrate on something else, something physical around him but everything looked the same. He exhaled and closed his eyes.  
The grey vanished, darkness surrounded him.

The light had left Pandora for around 30 hours as he had laid down before. Sleeping patterns were fucked up and everyone set the times for themselves, except for the Raiders. They slept when they didn’t have shifts and actually it wouldn’t matter anyway. Someone was always awake on Sanctuary. On Pandora.

He turned his head to another side, moved and tried to rearrange his legs.

“-- don’t think this can go on like that.” - “I know. But do we really have much of a --”  
Idle talk, outside of his window. Mordecai listened until the voices had vanished.

He shifted again, turned around and kicked the blanket away. “Fuck,” he couldn’t stay still.

Mordecai sat up, putting his body weight on one arm while his other hand went over his face and through his beard. He felt nasty.  
He grabbed the EchoCom on his nightstand, turned it on and looked at the time.

4 hours had passed after he had laid down. _Not enough_ , he thought. So he flipped the EchoCom back and stood up.

Another wave of pain hit his head and he needed to stand still for a moment. Let the pain be pain, let it vanish.

As it had gotten better, he started to move. Mordecai made a few aimless steps into the room, before he stopped and considered just staying awake. But the thought was dropped again.

4 hours wasn’t enough and he needed to get some of the missed nights back.

He walked over into the kitchen and searched through the cupboards until he found what he was looking for. A bottle of Rakk Ale.

 _Just a bit_ , he thought, _just a bit to help me sleep._

It helped him to fall asleep, even though it was only for another 3 hours. After that he stayed awake and tried to distract himself. But only for so long until another wave of tiredness had hit him and he fell asleep on the kitchen table.

 

* * *

 

 

  
Mordecais head was still heavy, his eyelids refused to open immediately and he struggled to get a clear vision at first.  
Gun parts were scattered around in front of him and he remembered that he had started to take old guns apart. He never recombined them though.

A displeased sound was dragged from him and he lifted himself up, shoved a Maliwan scope aside and put his face in his hands. Exhaustion was pulling at his bones and he wanted to fall asleep again.

The EchoCom denied him his wish though. Someone was calling him. The sniper turned his head slightly and looked over to his bed and the nightstand with the EchoCom. He thought about ignoring it but dropped the thought again. It could be something important after all.

So he dropped his hands and stood up. His feet dragged him over to his bed and he took his EchoCom in his hands. Lilith tried to reach him. He made a face and wished to ignore her. Somehow that thought made him feel bad and he picked up anyway.

“Uh,” he failed. His tiredness was still dragging him down.

“Are you not answering me on purpose? That was the third time.” Lilith asked but amusement was clear in her voice. By now she was used to this.  
“No,” Mordecai said. “I was sleepin’ Lil. People do that you know?”

Lilith let out a huff.

“I need you to come by, I’ve got something to do for you boys,” she said. The insecurities from last night washed up against his back.

“Sure,” he answered ignoring the feeling.

“Good, see you soon,” she ended the talk as fast as she had started it. The feeling lingered on.

He shoved it aside again and tried to get his drained body to move again.  
Mordecai put on clothes but didn’t go to the bathroom, ignoring the fact that he was most likely looking like hell. His friends were used to it anyway, no one would ask questions.

Sometimes it was a bliss, but on other days he had wished them to ask, to care. Humans were complicated though and Mordecai tried not to dwell on it. He had done so in the past and it hadn’t been any good. It started to hurt when you realize that no one actually cared. Especially in these times where everyone had a package to carry. Being seemingly okay was much easier for everyone, but he didn’t exactly hide his emotions either.

However he put on his goggles and went out of the house, being blinded by the light for some moments. After his eyes adapted, he walked down the staircase and whistled for a moment. Talon answered with a screech but didn’t meet his steps. It’s okay, Mordecai thought, Talon was just like his mother. It made him worry, but he couldn’t keep Talon safe forever. At least Sanctuary was rather safe for the bird.

He arrived at the HQ and went upstairs. Mordecai could hear Lilith and Brick discussing something. He guessed it was something involving punching but Mordecai blocked most of the words out anyway.

“There you are,” Lilith said, smiling a bit, looking as exhausted as Mordecai felt.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Mornin’ Mordy,” Brick called out.

“You call this morning?” Lilith joked, looking at the clock. Brick shrugged.

“Yeah, Yeah,” Mordecai cut in, gesturing with his hands “so what’s the deal?”  
He changed the topic before someone would start to brag over his sleeping patterns.

“Right,” Lilith said, breathing through. “It’s about Handsome Jack,” she said and looked up, meeting stern faces now. She wished that she could crack a smile about it, but couldn’t find the strength.

“I’ve heard that Athena knows more about him.”

“Athena?” Brick looked confused, he tried to connect a face to the name. It had been a while.

“The woman that also fought General Knoxx ... blue hair, pretty serious all the time,” Lilith quickly added and Brick nodded, making an ‘Ahh’ sound. Mordecai was glad that Brick had asked, because he had almost forgotten about Athena as well. It had been around 4 years after all.

“So ... what about her and Jack?” Mordecai asked.

“I heard she had worked with him before ... before all of this happened,” Lilith explained.

“So?”

“We search for her and question her, easy is that,” Lilith leaned over the table with the map.

“Questioning her ... because of Jack?” Mordecai was skeptical.

“Yeah,” Lilith looked up and met his eyes.

Jack was dead. So was Roland. Mordecai didn’t see anything that they could gain through this action, but he wouldn’t start dwelling on it now. This was Liliths call after all. Still it kind of bugged him. Nothing that Athena could tell them would change what was now.

“That is what we gonna do,” Lilith said, something heavy lying in her voice.

“With ‘we’ you mean us. Me and Mordy, right?” Brick called in, crossing his arms.

“Kinda, yeah,” Lilith admitted shrugging.

 

* * *

 

 

  
Brick was driving, Mordecai was riding shotgun.

The sniper had leaned back and had put his legs up on the board. Brick wasn’t sure if he was sleeping or not, since Mordecai hadn’t talked since they had gotten into the car and reading his expression was kind of hard thanks to the goggles. However, Brick didn’t want to pry.

“What do you think about this?” Mordecai said after an hour or so.

Brick watched the wasteland in front of him. As he saw some skags in the distance, he sped up.  
“About what?”

“ _This._ ” Mordecai made an attempt to throw his arms in a circle, but the car had hit a larger stone and instead of gesturing, he held onto the side of the car. “Drive a bit more careful will yah?”

Brick huffed and grinned. “Okay, sorry.”  
Mordecai leaned back again, but his legs were down now. He wasn’t planning on falling out of the car thanks to Bricks driving style.  
And people complained that he was driving as if he was drunk - well he had been most of the time but still.

“You know what I think?” Brick eventually said, holding the steering wheel with more force as he was driving closer towards a little skag group.

“Hitting stuff is fun?”

“That too.” Brick let out a laugh and Mordecai cracked a smile.

They hit one of the skags with the car. The vehicle was shaking and Mordecai chuckled while Brick laughed much louder than him. Bricks laughs felt a lot like earthquakes to Mordecai.  
Pointless violence against the pandorian wildlife was just a thing that happened. Everyone that would say that he wouldn’t have hit a skag or a bandit with a driving vehicle would either be lying or would have just gotten to Pandora. Anyway, it was fun and skags weren’t exactly nice animals.

“I think,” Brick started again, relaxing his giant hands. He let go of the steering wheel with one and circled his shoulder for a moment. They were driving far too long already and he wanted to do something else. “I think that we get something to do besides sitting in Sanctuary the whole goddamn day.”

“Right.” Mordecai agreed and leaned his head to the side, watching the wandering wasteland for a moment. “You think this is for us?”

Brick shrugged. “For her.”

 _For Roland_ , Mordecai ultimately thought. He sighed defeated. _We’re running in circles_ , he thought but didn’t say a word.

They spend the rest of the drive in silence again. Something heavy still lied in the air, but neither of them could grasp it.

Another hour later they arrived at their destination. A small town in the wasteland that was connected to the Railroad. Brick stopped the car a few hundred meter away from the entrance.

Mordecai got out of the car, swiftly jumping over the side while Brick made the whole car move as he got out. He was glad to have his feet back in the dust and walked around the front of the vehicle to meet his friend.

“I don’t think that she’s still here.” Mordecai muttered and looked over to a sign that read ‘Prosperity Junction’. It was almost completely broken down and reminded him of the sign in front of Fyrestone.  
“We can still ask around.” Brick said and started to walk off. Mordecai followed up, but kept his distance.

He hadn’t been here before, but as much as he could see it looked like just another pandorian town. Mostly abandoned and as much as he feared it was probably overrun by Bandits anyway. There were rarely places on Pandora where you didn’t have to shoot your way out of.

The town seemed to have one main road that lead straight up to a huge building. Probably the train station. It read ‘Prosperity Junction’ as well, but the ‘T’ in ‘Junction’ was missing.  
A few men were around, chatting in corners or digging in the dirt.

They didn’t pay too much attention to either Brick or Mordecai.

“Where do we even wanna start? Just asking someone? Feels kinda weird.” Mordecai admitted and sped up a bit to meet Bricks huge steps. The taller man looked down to his friend.

“We don’t have much of a choice, let’s look around for someone who looks important.”

Mordecai smiled faintly. “Fine, what about that guy?” he nodded over to a guy slamming his fists against one of the toilets, desperately wanting to get in.

“Nah,” Brick shrugged. “Looks like he has some other important stuff to do.”  
  
Mordecai chuckled and let his eyes wander around. Deeper in the town there were more people. Most stood in corners, talking, some other were laying flat on the ground. Either dead or sleeping.  
“No one of them looks ‘important’, Brick.”

“That one kinda does.” he pointed over to a man selling skag meat from a grill.

“Yeah,” Mordecai looked up “because he’s providing the food.”

“I think it’s a good start.” Brick changed the course and walked into the direction of the grill.  
“Yeah, because you’re hungry.” Mordecai followed up. Some start was better than no start.

They stopped in front of the man. His half-bald hairline was directly connected with his chops and he had some black paint underneath his eyes, together with red paint on his right cheek. He also had a goatee and chopped some meat with a bloody ax.

“Hey,” Brick said and the guy looked up, putting the ax aside.

“Hey,” he answered and turned around some of the meat. “Can I help you guys?” his eyes scanned both, Mordecai and Brick. For a moment his eyes seemed to stop at the rifle that Mordecai had swung on his back, but he just turned back to face the grilling meat in front of him.

“Yeah, we’re looking for someone,” Mordecai said. “Someone named Athena.”

The man took his time, turning the meat on the grill again, shifting from one foot to the other. “Hm,” he made and took one of the raw meat pieces in his hand, then he put it onto a spit. As he took another one, Mordecai sighed and his eyes wandered for a moment. More people had gathered, walking on the streets and eyeing them.  
He didn’t like this and wanted to get this done as fast as possible.

Brick seemed much calmer and patient at this moment. Mordecai decided that the man in front of them was taking too long though.

“Look man -”

“I’m thinking,” the guy interrupted him and his eyes flicked up to Mordecai. “Who are you guys?”

Mordecai wanted to say something, but Brick took the call before him. “No one important, just looking for Athena,” he said, and the guy had fixed the giant for now. “You know where she is or not?”

“Maybe,” he answered. “Depends on what y-”

“ **Isn’t that the fucking Slab King?!** ” someone barked in.  
“Adam, shut up!” another man with a deeper voice said. Mordecai and Brick looked over to the voices and two men were standing on the road, a few meters away from them. One of them was wearing a former lance helmet. Both of them were holding guns.  
“No! I’m sure! That’s him. Heard about him on that weird Hyperion radio thing and they fucked with Mortars people!” the man (Adam) continued.

“Interesting,” the meat-man said and Mordecai turned over to him again. He was walking around the grill and stopped next to it. “You know, I really don’t like it when troublemakers come over to my town.”

His voice had something threatening, but neither Mordecai nor Brick took it as a real threat.  
“So either you go now, or this gets nasty,” the man added and his hand hovered over his digistruck.

A clear sign, that made Mordecai smile for a moment. At least this wouldn’t get boring. Brick seemed to think the same thing.  
“We’re not going anywhere,” he said.

They deserved to blow off some steam.

“Yeah, so I guess we’re in for nasty then,” Mordecai agreed.

 

* * *

 

 

It didn’t even take a minute until Brick was roaming through a group of bandits, while Mordecai had gotten up to higher ground and tried to take out as many as possible with his rifle.

This hadn’t gone according to plan.  
And it was about to get bad.


End file.
